A Wanderer in Florence eBook

This chapel was once the scene of a gruesome ceremony.
Old Jacopo Pazzi, the head of the family at the time
of the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici, after
being hanged from a window of the Palazzo Vecchio,
was buried here. Some short while afterwards Florence
was inundated by rain to such an extent that the vengeance
of God was inferred, and, casting about for a reason,
the Florentines decided that it was because Jacopo
had been allowed to rest in sacred soil. A mob
therefore rushed to S. Croce, broke open his tomb and
dragged his body through the streets, stopping on
their way at the Pazzi palace to knock on the door
with his skull. He was then thrown into the swollen
Arno and borne away by the tide.

In the old refectory of the convent are now a number
of pictures and fragments of sculpture. The “Last
Supper,” by Taddeo Gaddi, on the wall, is notable
for depicting Judas, who had no shrift at the hands
of the painters, without a halo. Castagno and
Ghirlandaio, as we shall see, under similar circumstances,
placed him on the wrong side of the table. In
either case, but particularly perhaps in Taddeo’s
picture, the answer to Christ’s question, which
Leonardo at Milan makes so dramatic, is a foregone
conclusion. The “Crucifixion” on
the end wall, at the left, is interesting as having
been painted for the Porta S. Gallo (in the Piazza
Cavour) and removed here. All the gates of Florence
had religious frescoes in them, some of which still
remain. The great bronze bishop is said to be
by Donatello and to have been meant for Or San Michele;
but one does not much mind.

One finds occasion to say so many hard things of the
Florentine disregard of ancient art that it is peculiarly
a pleasure to see the progress that is being made
in restoring Brunelleschi’s perfect cloisters
at S. Croce to their original form. When they
were turned into barracks the Loggia was walled in
all round and made into a series of rooms. These
walls are now gradually coming away, the lovely pillars
being again isolated, the chimneys removed, and everything
lightly washed. Grass has also been sown in the
great central square. The crumbling of the decorative
medals in the spandrels of the cloisters cannot of
course be restored; but one does not complain of such
natural decay as that.